Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (3 February 1830-22 August 1903) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 23 June 1885 to 28 January 1886 (interrupting William Ewart Gladstone's two terms), from 25 July 1886 to 11 August 1892 (interrupting Gladstone's two terms), and from 25 June 1895 to 11 July 1902 (succeeding Archibald Primrose and preceding Arthur Balfour).

Biography
Robert Cecil was born in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England in 1830, and he was educated at Eton and Oxford. He was elected to Parliament for the Conservative Party to represent Stamford in 1853, and held this seat until becoming Marquess in 1868. He was Secretary of State for India from 1874 to 1876, and was then Foreign Secretary from 1878 to 1880. He led the Conservative Party from 1885, and in 1886 formed an alliance with the Liberal Unionist Party, thus successfully exploiting Liberal Party divisions over Irish home rule. Further reasons for his longevity in office were a close gasp of the wishes of the Conservative electorate, whom he sought not to alienate through radical or excessively enterprising measures. He also displayed a firm control over the House of Lords. Both of the latter qualities were notably absent in his nephew and successor, Arthur Balfour, which went a long way to explain the weakness of the Conservative Party in the decade after his resignation. In addition to being Prime Minister, he was also Foreign Secretary (except for 1886-7) until 1900, when he was succeeded by Landsowne.